Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, to the House. That is a general welcome because I believe the Ministers, that is, Deputies Noonan, Howlin and Harris, have done the State some service compared with the situation the public finances were in. I am glad they are operating within the European Union guidelines, as well as the guidelines of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, that we have lessons to learn from what happened before which are being learned and that we are not in the business of buying votes, which probably does not work in any case. As Members engage in their surveillance of the public sector, there still are efficiency gains that are essential. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report on postcodes published today reveals an Inspector Clouseau-like conduct by the project's promoters. I have not yet received a single letter that has a postcode on it. It was a dream world. Members pointed out both here and at the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications that nobody wanted this project. Private sector people did not seek it and An Post already was delivering 98% of letters on a next-day basis anyway. I wish everything operated at an efficiency rate of 98% but this project appeared to have a life of its own. It involved strange employment of consultants without open competition and a cost-benefit analysis that added in benefits that were not there and forgot to include costs and so on. It is a case study. In all of this and in the reforms being implemented by the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, and his ministerial colleagues, Deputies Noonan and Howlin, is there a procedure by which the Comptroller and Auditor General, the officer charged with these efficiency duties under the Constitution, could be involved before it gets to the State pathologist or the coroner's report? Could these projects be spotted first and steps taken to avoid them? This is what the Comptroller and Auditor General is there for and it is a useful reminder to the House that many of the problems experienced in the past still must be addressed and Members cannot cover everything.

On tax reform, I note there again is a movement to the effect that Ireland has too many low-income people who are kept out of the tax net. I support keeping them out and consider it to have been a progressive move by various Governments to operate taxes in that way. While there is an opposite view to the effect that everybody should pay something, paying something or paying a lot on low incomes is not the kind of social model we have espoused. The various Ministers have referred to the top tax rate on average incomes, and I presume it will be addressed. The water tax turned out to be a poll tax. It is €260 for the first glass of water regardless of income and is free thereafter. Members tabled amendments in this House that would have been useful, because the Leader and the Cathaoirleach allowed full debate here. Some amendments and proposals that were put forward in this House would have helped the Government. Nevertheless, it is strange to introduce a poll tax. As for the universal social charge, USC, having an exemption limit which then is abolished once one goes over the exemption limit, that must be corrected because that turns taxation on its head. On the issue of corporate tax, the single low rate tax is the one to defend. However, we must move - and the base erosion profit shifting, BEPS, movement from the OECD is the way to go - towards stating the rate of 12.5% here is a bargain and towards asking people to pay at that rate of 12.5%.Let us not have a whole industry of tax lawyers and accountants, the fiscal termites, trying to erode the 12.5% rate.

On capital projects, some start was made yesterday, particularly in the later chapters. We must appraise capital investment much more strictly than we did in the past. The Minister must look at the alternatives, tell us the cost-benefit ratio, the internal rate of return, the net present value and all of those, and not have projects proceeding because the beneficiaries - the engineering sector and the construction sector - think it is a good idea. If one asks any sector whether it wants the entire GDP spent on it, of course it will answer "yes". Robbing Peter to pay Paul usually gets the support of Paul and Paul's tax lawyers and accountants. That is not the point. On redistribution, we should emphasise again that it is to take from the haves to give to the have nots. The squeeze on medical cards for people aged between seven and 70 contrasts strangely with a flaithiúlach attitude to people who are under seven and over 70. We are meant to have transfers from the haves to the have nots.

On institutional reform, as the Comptroller and Auditor General suggests, we must develop more individual responsibility. Regarding the passing of the buck which is dealt with in the later sections of the Comptroller and Auditor General's views on postcodes, someone in a Department promoted that and despite everything we said at the Committee on Transport and Communications, it still went ahead. Some €38 million was spent as well as there being ongoing charges and we have not seen a single letter using it yet after the first three months.

The Exchequer must make quite clear to lobbyists that it serves society as a whole, not just lobbyists. Lobbyists distract industry from the market. What is the market? We have had an internal devaluation and we cut the costs in the public sector. We have an external devaluation because our currency, the euro, has declined relative to our major trading partners, in both sterling and the dollar. Our attitude seems to be to get out there and go for export-led growth rather than trying to replace it by domestically generated growth which got us in trouble before. However, the direction is sound and I wish the Minister of State and his two colleagues every success.